How will this end?

No more money.

It’s all gone.

Went to the CAB today and they’ve given me an appointment for next week.

I’m wondering if I’ve got grounds for a legal case if it’s proven that the housing association blocked the sale of my house.

All this would have been sorted by now if they’d just been honourable.

Got an appointment tomorrow at the doctors, shall ask for some Diazepam to calm me down. Don’t want to touch the booze again.

Not sure if the estate agent is still interested after they’ve probably found my bank account empty. All DD’s are cancelled, no money even for the mortgage.

Sigh.

I want this to end, even if it’s with repossession. I’m sick of living in a limbo world.

Headache.

I miss my girlfriend, need a cuddle off her.

Another day....

....another estate agent.

I’m putting the house back on the market with a better known agent…. no cowboys this time, me hopes.

Got tired of listening to him after a while though, although he seemed nice enough. That empty optimism falls on deaf ears nowadays.

They seem to have the right idea about how to sell it and are taking into account the problems I’ve had previously.

I’m a little more cynical and tired about it all this time though.

Gawd knows, anybody got a crystal ball to see if I’m wasting my time?

Fuck em.

Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers

So what do you do with a band that breaks up before it gets a chance to record it’s debut album? Who’s frontman has such an artistic change of heart before he realises he has a successful music career that the rest of the band decide to bugger off? Who’s early punky demo tapes are collected together post-break-up to form a seminal LP masterpiece?

I dunno, listen and enjoy them I guess :o)

The career of The Modern Lovers aka Jonathan Richman & The Modern lovers aka Jonathan Richman could be seen as one lacking in direction due to an ego-maniac of a frontman, but Jonathan Richman is a wide-eyed, childlike, gentle-giant sort who’s voice makes him sound like a cool indie rocker but who’s heart yearns for softer acoustic melodies and a peaceful existence.

The excitement of youth may have caused him to make an initial wrong step, but luckily for us that wrong step just happened to be amazing. The not-a-debut-album debut album is a fantastic Velvet Underground/The Stooges flavoured new-wave/punk classic and I’m loving the live album that I’ve found on Spotify too.

I’m not sure if I’ll get into Jonathan Richman’s Spanish styled acoustic "solo" stuff (was there ever really a band?), but I’m becoming more and more fascinated by the man: a bundle of contradictions who nobody seems to be able to define.

Here are some nice interviews with him that really reveal the sort of warm person he is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJG4bQxVIHM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7mHg0H6sy8

A few music clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDJShMk-r88
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJUY3q3xaWY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjFU98mEem4

Very inspiring stuff :o)

"Watchmen" movie - first thoughts

There comes a time in many people’s lives when a sense of confusion about the nature of things overwhelms them. This might strike during childhood, teenage years, early adulthood, middle ages or beyond. It derives from that fundamental fear that in a vast, seemingly limitless universe what is the meaning and point to our lives, and why should we carry on through struggle and strife?

One point of view could be that in relation to the cosmos our lives are a pure accident. We are alive because our planet is this size, is this close to the sun and has gases around it that make it habitable. What we do with our lives, good or bad, has no real meaning. All plants and creatures are on this planet purely to serve their own regeneration, everything is about surviving to reproduce…. be it tree, flower, weed, ant, cat, dog or human, we simply are here to exist. There is no grand scheme or design to it all which will be revealed after we are gone.

The character of Dr Manhattan in Watchmen is grappling with this very point himself and, now gifted with superhuman ability, has become emotionally, morally and physically detached from humanity and Earth by the coldly logical answer. He sees misery and suffering and the prospect of more to come but cannot understand why either state really matters. On a long enough timeline everything becomes dust, why is it so important how it got there?

Watchmen has three main functions. The first is as a domestic drama involving masked heroes, vigilantes if you will, who’s glory days have come and gone. The second is as a fairly standard good versus evil popcorn pot-boiler, replete with cool gadgets and an impressive villain’s lair in which to stage a grand finale and showdown. The third is to pose that key philosophical question about he meaning of existence.

It’s worth watching on all three counts and is brave indeed for daring to provide food for thought for it’s viewers and risk a drop in ticket sales.

Unfortunately however, and I wish I didn’t have to say this, but the level of horrific violence displayed throughout does well to stop the viewer from truly empathising with it’s main protagonists... good or bad. This point may very well keep it from becoming a true classic. Then again, maybe the level of violence is, in itself, part of the philosophising that is at the heart of Watchmen.

"Humbug" - Arctic Monkeys

Eeee, something approaching a proper review from me at last....

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Who would have guessed that the gothic-tinged “Perhaps Vampires Is A Bit Strong But” from the Arctic Monkeys’ debut album would light the way for their eventual artistic embodiment. It was a song that stood out amidst a collection of urban breast-beaters and hinted at an already keen sense of moving-on…. after all, whilst we’re guessing what’ll be the next single from their recent album they’re already firing off demos of their next dozen.

Humbug is an album for lovers of a good old croon. Down go the frenzied twin guitar riffs and up go the atmospherics. Alex Turner spends much of the album with the microphone in his hand rather than a white Stratocaster and smoothly draws the listener into a world of basement bars and velvet lounges. Had the album closed with a cover of “My Way” then not many punters would be left feeling short-changed.

The corrosive scent of unrequited dance-floor lust and domestic violence that flavoured their first two albums becomes a sour mist of seedy encounters with black-market poison merchants and dominating sex fiends. The band has flung aside their modesty and embraced a more primal side….. surely not the actions of a bunch of meek indie chancers?

Humbug won’t hot your heels on the way to work, but it’ll make a good accompaniment to a rainy night on the sofa with a glass of scotch.

You said it, Frankie.

Killer ice-cream!!

Well, maybe….

….I always feel like I’m dicing with death when I eat something out of Dad’s food cupboards because he’s not great at spring cleaning them.

I found a tub of vanilla ice-cream in his freezer and was confused to find a massive layer of frost covering the yellow contents. I broke through and dished myself a portion and found some of it a little warm and thick, like fudge or something.

It was just meant to be plain vanilla but I’m concerned the odd texture and thick frost layer may be a sign of it going off, even though it was stored properly in the freezer.

Am I doomed?

I think I’ll be ill in bed all day tomorrow, eek!!

Serves me right for having a sweet tooth!!

Too calm in the eye of the storm

I’ve been trying to sell my shared-ownership house for the past year but have encountered problems due to the small print in the lease on the half of the property that I don’t own.

Basically no mortgage lender will touch it so buyers are going elsewhere.

Out of desperation I recently got in contact with the local press because there are other home owners in the area experiencing the same problem.

The newspaper I have been in contact with rang me today to go over the details of the case but when I told them which estate agent I was selling it through there came a gasp….

….apparently the estate agents ceased trading a month ago and I knew nothing about it. According to the journalist they are in trouble over non-payment of rents to landlords and are being chased by Trading Standards.

Creepily I rang them up before I found out and spoke to their on-sit mortgage advisor who didn’t mention anything and in fact lied about actions they would take to help me.

Weird.

Worryingly though they still have the keys to my house…. eek!! I’m going over there tomorrow so hopefully everything will be in one piece.

But yes, definitely weird.

Should I be this calm?